


Being Better

by mimosabrunch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Humor, Second Chances, Wish Fulfillment, joking about trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28943436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimosabrunch/pseuds/mimosabrunch
Summary: When Draco had chosen to lie, he had given her hope in that moment beyond the fact that they could win the war after all; he gave her back the hope that there was still good in people if you looked hard enough for it.Post-war, Hermione receives a summons to speak at Draco Malfoy's trial. Her candor on the stand delivers him his freedom. But she doesn't expect a tentative friendship to strike up as a result, and she certainly doesn't expect to find herself falling for the boy she hated for years.
Relationships: Hannah Abbott/Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Lavender Brown/Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Rolf Scamander
Comments: 14
Kudos: 147





	Being Better

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hello, got a little idea here that was supposed to be 500 words. The idea had ideas of its own. Very rude of it.

“State your name.”

Hermione leaned forward. “Hermione Jean Granger.”

“And what’s your relationship to the accused, Draco Malfoy?”

“He was a classmate of mine,” she said. “And he saved my and my friends’ lives during the war.”

They peppered her with questions, and she only allowed herself to look over at Draco a few times. He was pale with dark circles under his eyes. That made sense. Azkaban was hardly the kind of accommodation he was used to. Although she had to admit, based on what she’d seen of Malfoy Manor last year when the death eaters had set up camp there, perhaps solitary confinement in Azkaban was a better fate and, if the trial went Draco’s way, a temporary one, too. 

She had been surprised to receive the letter demanding her presence before the Wizenmagot for his trial per his request. He must have been very desperate; it wasn’t as if he could call on his friends as character witnesses, as many of them were in the same fate, if they were still alive at all. 

“What would you describe your relationship with the accused to be during school?”

“Contentious. We openly hated each other.”

“Why was that?”

“He was a pureblooded bigot, and he made sure I was constantly reminded of my blood status. I could also raise the conjecture that he was extremely insecure that I consistently bested him in our classes, but I have no proof of that. Just my speculation.”

“You say the accused--”

“Could you stop calling him that?” Hermione asked. “He has a name.”

There was a pause, and she could feel Draco’s eyes on her.

“The accused,” he went on, but Hermione bit her tongue. “He saved your and your friends’ lives. Can you expand on that?”

It had been a while since the war had officially concluded. She’d already finished her seventh year and taken her NEWTs. She’d heard that Draco was finishing his seventh year in Azkaban. She was ready to move on. She’d been sending out owls for job interviews when the summons had come. She wasn’t personally super excited about the way her mind refused to stop thinking of him ever since. 

She saw it even if no one else had, even if it was gone in a blink, that scared shard of vulnerability like broken glass when she was on the floor of his manor with Bellatrix branding her arm and the only thing that slightly eased the ache was thinking he had lied. He had lied and said he wasn’t sure if it was Harry; he had bought them time. There was little beauty in war, but that moment when his grey eyes cast upon her, it felt like warm raindrops of salvation, of breathing again after being underwater, and for a moment, she had forgotten the cold nights in the woods with the charms and frost biting at her wind-whipped cheeks, the way Ron had left this wound in her chest that wouldn’t heal even after he’d returned and she knew that what she felt for him had been extinguished when he left her and Harry behind.

When she finished speaking, the need to look at him was strong because she could feel his gaze on her and it unsettled her. She wanted to know if the hate in his eyes was still there or if his time in Azkaban had taken the light from him entirely. She wanted to know what was going on in his head. 

She looked. It was a mistake.

There was no hate, none of the sharp animosity that used to rest there. But those eyes still held a spark in them that isolation had yet to extinguish. Instead, he regarded her curiously, as if the more he watched her, the more he would understand her, as if she was a puzzle that could be solved if he just stared hard enough. 

“Miss Granger?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, refocusing. “What did you say?”

“Do you think the accused can be rehabilitated?”

She spoke slowly, each word deliberate. “I don’t think there’s anything to rehabilitate. This is not a hardened war criminal. He’s just someone who was doing what he was told, and yes, I understand that was not the right call. I do understand that. Probably better than most people. I understand evil breeds in the shadows when people are too afraid to do the brave and right thing. But I also understand that he was a child who was told his entire life to hate people different from him. I don’t particularly want to sit up here and wax poetic about a boy who made my life miserable for years and who made many bad decisions that were ultimately devastating to many. 

“But I also encourage you to think about what you thought at eleven or twelve or fifteen or sixteen and who you are now. If we are not capable of growth, of becoming less ignorant and intolerant, if we are not able to become better people, what is it all for? I have to wake up and choose to believe that people can be better than who they were taught to be, or excuse my language, it makes it pretty bloody bleak to have fought a war and nearly died countless times if there’s no hope we can do better.”

For a moment, there was silence other than the rustling of dress robes as people shifted in their seats. 

“You think the accused can do better?”

“I think Draco can do better,” she said. “Please understand me when I say he was an absolute bully at school, a true pain in my...my point being we weren’t friends and we are likely to never be chummy. But I won’t sit here and pretend I don’t think he’s intelligent, that I don’t think he could do incredible things for wizarding kind if he had the right kind of motivation and drive. He has the kind of brain that could change the world for the better if he wants to. And again, I say this as someone who does not like him. You can despise someone and still recognize they have potential. I think it would be a tragedy if his potential was wasted because he made choices out of fear and loyalty to family when he could really do important things.”

Silence fell again, and she looked at him. His eyebrows had knitted together, that expression of confused intrigue apparent on his face. 

She wasn’t going to lie. Yes, of course, she didn’t like him, but she also didn’t want to be the one to condemn him to the dementors. She wanted to believe that underneath everything, people could still be good if they wanted to be. 

When they let her go, she caught his eye. He nodded, and it felt like acknowledgement that he’d never given her before.

They came back with the unanimous decision after a short deliberation. Draco Malfoy was free.

* * *

It was on the day she had the interview with the ministry that she came home to an owl pecking at the window. She let it in. Crookshanks tried to chase it, but the owl was fast and swooped a cracker from Hermione’s outstretched hand and flew out of the window without waiting for a response. That was a shame, but perhaps he’d been told not to wait, that a response wasn’t necessary. Perhaps one wasn’t even wanted. The ministry could have hated her and sent her a rejection as soon as she left the office. The owl would have had to be quite speedy to have beaten her home, though.

Two words and a set of initials: Thank you --DM

She stared at the letter for a while before putting it down. She’d not truly expected any gratitude from Draco. He’d never been one to be thankful for much. 

* * *

  
  


Her first day on the job was a bundle of excited nerves. It was almost funny to her that she could experience so much in life and yet the first day at her first job could make her stomach tie in knots. They showed her to her office, and she settled in, wondering if there was a charm she could use to keep a plant alive so she’d brighten up the space. She sat in on a department meeting about what to do about the population of house elves who now had no...employers (Hermione refused to call them masters) or homes with many purebloods and their families dead or imprisoned. It had been a while since the war, but with the department short-staffed, not much had been done. There was talk about taking the elves from the ministry, but it was decided that was a conversation for the higher ups of the department when Hermione had made suggestions about providing therapy for the house elves to help them understand they deserved to be free. 

By the time she got home, her head was filled with ministry jargon like “let’s wandstorm” and “we’ll need to apparate back to that”. 

The letter had the same seal as before, but the message was longer this time: Congratulations on the job offer. If you have any interest at all, I’d like to talk over coffee. You said a lot at the trial; I have a lot to say, too. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in. --DM

She knew it was most likely a terrible idea, but she accepted anyway. 

  
  


* * *

When they went for coffee, apologies fell off his tongue like he’d waited eternities to let them out. He apologized for everything from how he treated her to the fact it had to be coffee and not some elaborate meal because the Malfoy money had gone to the ruination of the war, although he himself had said it was fitting. They sat drinking coffee with the snow freckling the window outside, and she noticed he took it black, and when she said something, he laughed a bit ruefully and said he did not think he deserved the sweetness she added to her own.

She covered his hand in that moment, although she didn’t know why, and it was soft and warm, which tangled something deep in her belly. There was something attractive about a man with nice hands, about a man who knew how to take care of himself. 

“You don’t deserve to punish yourself forever,” she told him.

He eyed her skeptically. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You did,” Hermione said. “I’m not going to make excuses for what you did, and I think you know me well enough to not expect that. But you are not who you were. Not if you don’t want to be. You want to be better, to feel good about yourself again? That doesn’t come from tiny punishments for yourself or moping or letting yourself stew in misery. It comes from actually being better, Draco. From putting in the work. It’s just a matter of if you want to do that. You’ve got a second chance here. Who are you going to be now?”

He added sugar to his saucer, bringing it to his lips, and letting out a small sigh when it hit them. “You know, Granger, it always used to bother me how damn bright you were. Now, I think life, everything, would be quite different if you weren’t.”

* * *

She didn’t hear from him for six months after that. She figured that despite his politeness that she had somehow offended him with her candor. But when the honey-colored owl swooped in through her window one day, he’d written to tell her he had just accepted an apprenticeship at St. Mungo’s to train to become a healer. 

His signature was messily scribbled at the bottom, perhaps a quick note as he ran back to training, and the letter itself consisted of only three words: To becoming better. --DM

When he graduated the program, his name had been in the Prophet. She’d written him to see if he wanted to catch up, and he politely declined with: Putting in the work. --DM

She heard from Harry, of all people, that Draco had applied for medical security clearance from the Ministry. It was a need-to-know basis; he hadn’t even told Ron, and with a stern look, said to Hermione, “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t either.”

Hermione badgered Harry with questions. What could Draco possibly want with that kind of clearance? She wanted to believe the best in him, that he really wanted to be better, but those old school day doubts lingered in the back of her mind. Harry wouldn’t say, said he couldn’t say, that it was truly grounds for termination if the ministry found out that he’d said anything at all.

She would lay awake and wonder. What could he be doing? He answered her owls now and then, his penmanship growing more frantic, but she never dared to ask for fear of Harry losing his job.

* * *

Hermione cried when it hit the papers. The kind of ugly, chest-aching sobbing that terrified Crookshanks, and she had been right. She had been right that he could make something of himself and leave behind the horrors of his surname, the hate he had been born into. He was capable of brilliance and kindness.

She kept the front page of the Daily Prophet framed with a proud fondness. Every morning, she’d wake up and eat breakfast and trace her fingers along the bold print of the paper and smile as Draco’s portrait beamed down at her. She read that headline over and over until it would pop up in her mind in the shower or pulling weeds in the garden: 

DRACO MALFOY’S MAGNIFICENT DISCOVERY: HEALER REVERSES LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF CRUCIATUS CURSE, AURORS FRANK AND ALICE LONGBOTTOM RETURNED TO GOOD HEALTH AND REUNITED WITH WAR HERO SON!

Neville came ‘round a few weeks later with a lightness in his eyes that Hermione had never seen. 

“My mum’s a terrible singer,” Neville said as they took tea, and the two of them laughed and cried. “Crazy, innit, Hermione? You can’t even imagine how I feel. Never thought it’d be Malfoy of all people. He asked me about you, you know. Something going on between you two?”

But Hermione deflected. “Tell me about your dad.”

“He makes a mean shepherd’s pie,” Neville said. “Far cry better than Gran’s cooking.”

* * *

  
  


She’d waited too long to reach out to him. She knew that. It’d been a few months since the Longbottoms had been healed, but she hadn’t been able to collect herself when she thought of them and what Draco had done. 

Work had been frustrating. She’d already published a paper on the liberation of house elves, but none of her colleagues nor the head of the department seemed to take much interest. She frequently asked about the idea of forcing pureblood families to relinquish their house elves, and she was brushed off and told it was being handled. Whatever that meant. She got the distinct feeling that many in the department cared very little about liberating house elves, as if they wanted to keep house elves viewed as a species below wizards. Every time she pushed, she found herself pushed further back and shut out, told there was already legislature being drafted behind closed doors in meetings she was never invited to.

“You should be happy,” her boss, Leonard, said one day. “They’ve decided they’re going to quietly remove all of the house elves from the families that have had them for hundreds of years. A complete break in tradition and a disgrace to the wizarding world. Who will clean my socks if not for house elves? Regardless, I thought you’d be happy.”

She was, and it was that happiness that fizzed through her and made her write to Draco when she got home. 

* * *

They sat down at the same place as before, and immediately she said, “I want all the details of the cure. What was it? What did the trick?”

“It was dittany,” Draco said. “I got around to thinking about its healing properties, how it can stitch wounds new flesh as if it never happened at all and started wondering what exactly about it did that, and if it could be replicated on a psychological level for the mind to repair trauma victims.”

“You must have spent so much time on this,” she said. “I’d never even considered replicating any of dittany’s effects. It makes sense why it would work, though.”

“It took a lot of time,” he agreed. “I didn’t mean to be rude when I turned down all of your invites to coffee. I just knew when I saw you again I wanted to have done something worth talking about. I’m sorry to have kept you in the dark, but I figured it would be disappointing if I hadn’t been successful.”

Her mouth opened slightly. “You don’t owe me any apologies about that. You did something remarkable, and you shouldn’t apologize for it. Now, tell me how you isolated the dittany.”

“I should have known,” Draco said, and he was laughing. “That you’d want to know about the magic behind it all. Your brain is always working even when you’re relaxing.”

Hermione cleared her throat. “If I’m honest with you, I have to focus on the magic of it rather than how...how what you did makes me feel. I’m not much of a public crier.”

“Well, if I’d known it’d make you cry, I wouldn’t have done it,” Draco said wryly. “I think I’ve probably caused enough of your tears to last a lifetime.”

“It’s incredible,” Hermione said. “On every single level. On a magical level, and...you can’t imagine what it means to Neville.”

“I think I can,” Draco said. “Longbottom’s taken me out for a round of drinks here and there. He gets a bit weepy with Firewhiskey. But I suppose I’d be too if I were him. I feel like a complete arse for how terrible I was to him at school. He's actually a funny bloke.”

“I thought I hurt your feelings,” Hermione said. “I thought I had annoyed you that time we went out to coffee.”

Draco shook his head. “No. You made me think. You made me really think about what you said. It would have been easy to drink my days away and try to forget what I did in the past, what my family was responsible for. But you put it into a different perspective for me. Redemption isn’t impossible, if you are willing to do your damnedest to earn it.”

And she’d always known he could be someone worthy if he tried, that he could use his wit for good if he had the right direction and motivation. She watched him, the lighting above casting him a near-angelic glow that made her feel too warm and covered her in goosebumps simultaneously. 

“I had to try,” Draco said. “I had to try to make it right.”

It was like she saw him for the first time. The history wasn’t gone, but she saw him as who he wanted to be now, not the bullying schoolboy with issues he pawned off on other people to make himself less insecure, but a man who had the need to prove he deserved that second chance. 

“I didn’t want you to regret it,” Draco said quietly, after some time had lapsed.

Hermione tilted her head. “Regret what?”

“Speaking for me at the trial.”

Hermione raised her brows. “I wouldn’t have.”

“You didn’t have to, though.”

“And you didn’t have to pretend you didn’t recognize Harry. I think we’ve got enough didn’t-have-to’s between us. We should probably let them stay buried.”

The air sifted between them, a crackling heat of electricity zapping its way down her spine, and the thought of it made Hermione want to laugh. She was certain if she even mentioned the idea of electricity to Draco, it would confuse him endlessly. 

He traced his fingers along the table, eyes downcast. Finally, he looked up with a quizzical look in his eyes.

“How did you know that I knew it was Potter?”

Hermione laughed at this. “Draco, you were an absolute toerag at school, but I could never accuse you of being daft. The only reason we made it out of there alive is because you didn’t tell the truth. You gave us time. I don’t know if you even comprehend how much of a domino effect you could have had there if you just gave us up. Voldemort would have rewarded you. You probably could have risen in his ranks from it. Been somebody dark and powerful from Voldemort’s inevitable win, because we wouldn’t have won if he found us then. We didn’t have all the Horcruxes destroyed.”

Draco considered this for a moment. “What’s a domino effect?”

“Like dominoes, the game,” Hermione said. “Oh, right, you’re such a wizard.”

* * *

Will you teach me? --DM

The letter came the next morning, and Hermione hurried to write back as she was about to head to work, asking him what in Merlin’s beard Draco was talking about. 

That game, domingos --DM

Dominoes, she wrote back, if you want, I suppose. I imagine it’ll bore you.

Granger, I doubt anything with you could bore me. --DM

This so simply stated made her grateful he wasn’t saying it to her face, that the words were muted into written correspondence, so he couldn’t see the way it made her face brighten a fierce pink. 

* * *

  
  


As it turned out, he wasn’t very good at dominoes. She gave him the instructions over and over. They played every night for a month, and he grew familiar in her flat. Crookshanks liked to nestle in Draco’s lap, and Draco would absentmindedly scratch the fluffy creature behind the ears, and the two of them made a delightful pair. Draco knew his way around her fridge. On the third week of him showing up after work, he brought her waffles she always got from the muggle supermarket.

“You were almost out,” he said, as if it was nothing.

“You would have had to go into muggle London for this,” she said.

He nodded. “The currency they use is rather confusing.”

“Why did you do that?”

“You said they were your favorite,” he said. “I saw you were out. It wasn’t a big thing.”

But it was. She hadn’t remembered saying anything at all. She changed the subject.

“Can you set up the tiles?” she asked. “We better get on with me kicking your arse again.”

“Are Gryffindors supposed to be humble?” Draco asked.

“No, you’re thinking of Hufflepuffs.”

“Perhaps I should go to a Hufflepuff’s flat instead, then.”

Hermione cackled. “As if they’d let you in.”

Draco’s mouth dropped. “And what does that mean?”

“Oh, are you forgetting the time you--”

“If you are going to mention the time I transfigured all of the Hufflepuff first years into giant pumpkins and rolled them across the grounds with my friends, I would prefer you not.”

Hermione laughed. “You were truly something.”

Draco sighed. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Alright,” Hermione said. “I’ll stop teasing you if you can actually beat me at a game of this.”

He was quiet for a moment and then said, “Maybe I like when you tease me, Granger.”

Hermione played a tile and cleared her throat. “Your turn.”

The conversation changed, but the butterflies that had found their way to the depths of her stomach stayed even after he headed home later that night.

* * *

  
  


“But why would I draw such a horrible one?” he asked on the fifth week of dominoes. “Why not just turn it into better one?”

“Feels like you’re forgetting this is a muggle game and that the closest muggles come to magic is technology, not transfiguration.”

“Technology?”

“A very long explanation that I don’t think even a millennium would cover,” Hermione said. “Are you going to play or pass your turn?”

“I’m rather bad at this,” Draco said.

“It’s true,” Hermione agreed. “You truly are.”

“You’re supposed to say I’m not!”

“Draco, I would never lie to you.”

And it came out sincere and full-bursting from her chest, too earnest and sweet with a slight edge of husky timber, of hunger and the butterbeer that was sticky on her lips, and she licked them, drawing his gaze down to her mouth.

For a moment, she didn’t breathe. She suspected he didn’t either. It was almost as if the moment was so fragile, so prone to shattering that one wrong word or one sigh too loud would rupture it entirely and wake her from some dream, because it still felt odd to her that all of this had happened, that the boy she hated for so long grew into the man she was having rather complicated feelings for, who she was allowing herself to think of when she was alone in bed and that she knew no one she loved would approve of.

His gaze was still on her mouth when he spoke again, voice hushed as if he sensed the tentative nature of it, too. “I have lied to you many times, Granger.”

“You can call me Hermione,” she said, and her stomach was tight with the idea this could have all been some trick of his, but trying as she had to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I call you Draco, you know.”

He laughed. “I can’t call you that.”

“Why can’t you call me that?” Hermione asks.

His eyes made their gaze up to her eyes, pinning her with a heated stare. “I suppose it’s all really the same, why I can’t call you by your first name and how I’ve lied to you. I suppose it’s always come down to it. If I am being honest. I don't know if I want to be honest about this, Granger."

Her stomach jumped with nerves, and she wanted to lean across the table and brush that piece of hair that had fallen over his brow out of his eyes and feel the smoothness of his skin under her palm.

“I lied to you when we were at Hogwarts,” Draco said. “I did it so much I began to believe it. I told you horrible things I thought about you, things I didn’t mean even then, things I desperately wanted to believe. I insulted your blood, your appearance, your intellect, your choice in friends, although I think you know Weasley and I will never be best mates.”

“No, I think I’d floo the aurors to have you checked if you took up Ron’s company.”

He didn't smile, and in that moment, he looked very tired and small. “I was horrible to you.”

“You were,” she said, because again, she would never lie to him. “But you’ve apologized for that, so it’s behind us.”

He shook his head and put down a domino. 

“That’s not the right amount of dots,” she said.

He didn’t move to take the piece back. Instead, he stood, drawing his hands through that hair that kept falling more and more out of place. “You’re so damn good.”

“Draco?”

“You’re too good,” he said, almost to himself rather than her, as he began to pace. “You’re too kind and compassionate and generous, and you care too much about everything, even things I’d never think to. You spent years keeping people and elves and giants and everyone alive. And you’re too interesting and think of questions no one else does. I spent days being interviewed about the cure I created, and yet you were the only person to ask me about the technicalities of the magic. You’re smart and intriguing, and it would be easier if you were none of these things. It would be easier if you were an awful witch with inferior talent and intellect, whose nose didn’t scrunch up when she laughed and who didn’t give me so much kindness that I don’t deserve, if you weren’t so bloody beautiful that every time my name leaves your mouth, I think of kissing you and pulling you against me and feeling how soft you must feel, of…”

He trailed off, staring into the fireplace where the embers were slowly dying. 

“Draco?” she asked again, her mouth gone dry. 

“I feel as if we’ve struck up this strange little friendship,” Draco said. “Perhaps I’ve imagined this to be a friendship. Maybe it’s only one in my mind.”

“You haven’t imagined anything.”

He looked at her shortly and then nodded, looking away, and then he said, voice strangled, “And I am not saying I would want to ruin our friendship at all. I am most assuredly not saying that. But assuming I did say that, which I am not, I could...I could never deserve you. I could never be the man that you deserve or need.”

Hermione drew her knees up to her chest, the game abandoned on the table. “What would you do that could ruin our friendship, Draco?”

“Has this insane little breakdown of a confession I’ve given you not been enough to do just that?”

And she knew the moment was growing more and more careful, the footing she had here could fall through at any second. If she didn’t say the right thing, it might be the last words she ever got to say to him. 

Hermione wasn’t a liar and she was often blunt to a fault, but she’d never been great at expressing her feelings. Her longstanding will they-won’t they with Ron that fizzled out years ago was more than enough proof of that. She was intelligent, yes. She could debate theories and cast impressive spells the greats would envy, but when it came to matters of the heart, Hermione was no Lavender Weasley. 

“You said you think of kissing me,” Hermione said quietly. His chest rose and fell now, as if she held the key to destroy him. It was strange for her to feel this quiet kind of power right now, that whatever she said, he would hang off each word, carry each thread she gave him into the back of his mind. 

“Granger,” Draco said. “Please just tell me I am pathetic and ask me to leave. I can only handle so much embarrassment in a night.”

“I think of kissing you, too,” she said finally, and his head jerked abruptly to look at her. Her stomach knotted with it, and she was supposed to be a Gryffindor. She had fought in a war, so why did it feel as if this required more courage than anything she’d ever done? “I think of more than kissing you.”

He was against her in a heartbeat, pressing her body to him, and she felt his need in the way he kissed her as if she drove him half as crazy as he made her. She had always wondered when she saw him huddled away with Pansy Parkinson in corners snogging if he was the kind of kisser that made a woman feel consumed.

He was. She felt as if she was drowning in his touch, falling underneath the enchantment of his lips trailing down from her mouth to the hollow of her neck, with his hands branding her bare skin in a way she knew she would never forget. Even if they only had tonight, he would never leave her. 

They didn’t make it to the bed, the act of it all so passionate in a way she’d never known sex could be. She’d always had unsatisfactory sex in bed with the lights off with more thought to it ending than enjoying it. 

Draco wasn’t a selfish lover. He was meticulous, slow at first as he gauged her reactions to the way he held her hips or how he curved his thrust slightly upwards in a way that caused her throat to emit sounds she hadn’t known she was capable of. It was strange how right and intimate it felt to be with him when they’d never been together before, when she’d spent so much of her life wishing she could curse him without being expelled. 

She fell into pleasure over and over, more than she ever had at her own hand or by any other lover’s, and it was only when she told him she couldn’t take another that he let himself finish. 

They lay there, chests panting and skin shining with sweat in the quiet until he carried her upstairs and placed her into her bed. 

He stood awkwardly in the doorway.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” she asked, gesturing to the bed.

When he joined her, he laid his head against her chest, and she raked her fingers through his hair. 

“I’m glad you stopped wearing that gel,” she said with a yawn. “It’s much nicer this way.”

He made her breakfast the next morning. Completely overcooked the eggs and underdid the toast. She realized it was dangerous how charming she found it.

“I tried to do it without magic,” he said. “I thought it might be a nice gesture.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” she said. 

“I’m rather rubbish at cooking, it turns out.”

“Yes, well, having house elves cook for you your entire life will surely do that. I’m surprised you didn’t summon one here.”

“Oh, I don’t have any house elves anymore,” Draco said.

She nodded. “Oh, right, because the estate was taken away?”

He paused. “Something like that.”

And she could tell he wasn’t being honest about it, but she didn’t press it. It didn’t matter right now when he was smiling at her so nervously as he watched her eat the eggs, which were terrible. She ate them without hesitation.

  
  


* * *

They fell into a pattern: cozy winter nights tucked away in her flat with the roaring fire that always culminated with them naked and panting and feeling as if it couldn’t be possible for something to feel this right. 

One night, with the moon falling through the open window of her bedroom, Draco muttered something almost inaudibly against her temple: “I want to take you on a date.”

“A date?”

“Mmm, I believe you’re familiar with those, aren’t you? Didn’t you go on a few of those with McLaggen?”

Hermione swatted at him. “I am insulted by the insinuation that I ever seriously dated Cormac McLaggen. He’s an absolute toad.”

“I’m serious,” he said, and his smile against his forehead faded. “I want to take you out. Somewhere nice.”

She made her breathing even, pretending to have fallen asleep.

* * *

But Draco wanted answers. The more she deflected when the idea of going out in public came up, the more he asked about it.

Finally, one night, as she bustled about making dinner, he said what she had lacked the courage to say: “You don’t want people to know about us.”

Her hands stilled against the tomatoes she’d been slicing and rested against the damp cutting board. “It’s not that.”

“Oh? I’d love another believable explanation that makes me feel a bit less shite than this one, if you’ve got one.”

“It’s not about you, Draco. It’s about me.”

“Can you deliver a breakup line to someone if you’re not even dating yet?”

She turned, still unable to meet his eyes, her gaze settling on the floor. “I’m being honest.”

“Not enough,” Draco said. “Don’t, Granger. I’d like to think after all the time we’ve spent together, even if I don’t deserve you, that I deserve your honesty.”

“It’s not about deserving me,” Hermione said.

“Then what’s it about?”

“People will never understand.”

“What?”

“If people know about us, they’ll never understand,” Hermione said. “They’ll turn you into a god, and they’ll write me down as a slut in the papers.”

“I thought you’d moved beyond my history.”

“I have,” Hermione said, and that was the truth. “But many others haven’t. How do I bring you to gatherings with my family, with my friends, when they’ve lost people to that mark you’ve got on your arm?”

“So that’s what it comes down to? That the people you love will always hate me?”

“I won’t lie to you,” Hermione said. “I’m not ashamed of you, but you deserve someone whose loved ones won’t whisper about you or sneer at you or treat you terribly because of who you were.”

“I’m not that person anymore.”

“I know that,” Hermione said. “But they don’t, and you know many of my friends aren’t the type to forgive easily.”

Draco nodded and began to gather his coat. “I’ll be going then.”

“You don’t have to,” Hermione said. “We were just about to have dinner.”

“The sooner I leave, the sooner this is over,” Draco said. “There’s no point in continuing this without a future. I don’t want some casual limbo thing forever, Granger. This has never been that to me, even if it was for you.”

“It’s not like that,” Hermione said. “I didn’t think this would...I don’t know what I thought.”

“Hermione Granger, at a loss for words,” Draco said with a sad smile. “I’ve always wanted to see that, but I must admit I’m a bit sad about the situation. Take care of yourself, Granger. Don’t work too hard, alright?”

But before she could say anything, he was gone with a crack. 

  
  


* * *

Hermione made it through the rest of that week and then she visited Harry and Ginny, who was glowing with excitement and holding her stomach, and it wasn’t that Hermione wanted kids now. She wasn’t even sure she wanted them at all, but everyone was finding their person, and she was growing more certain by the day that Draco could have been hers before she turned him away. She sent him letters. 

The first only said: Please let me explain. 

He had responded, his letters slanted in a slow, cautious cursive, handwriting so unlike his normal quick ones, as if he had truly considered the words before putting them to parchment: There is nothing to explain. --DM

The rest of her letters were returned unopened. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“It’s going to be a boy,” Harry told her one day over drinks. 

Ron had decided to stay home tonight with Lavender’s due date being so close, and Hermione was grateful that it was just her and Harry here. In truth, Hermione wasn’t in the mood to celebrate, but she was going to put on a good face for Harry, because he deserved that from her.

“That’s great,” Hermione said. “I’ll buy the next round. Have you two thought of names?”

“Actually,” Harry said, and he was grinning widely. “It was Ginny’s idea, and when she suggested it, I think I fell for her all over again. We’re going to name him James Sirius.”

Hermione took a drink, nodding. “That’s a lovely name. Very sweet of Ginny to suggest it.”

Harry’s grin grew even more so. “There’s no one I’d rather do this with than her.”

Hermione nodded again, her breath catching in her throat, and something inside of her clenched, and she wiped at her eyes, which were now rudely and inconveniently leaking.

“Uh,” Harry said. “Are you okay?”

“Just...really happy...for my friends.”

Harry shook his head. “This is not your happy cry.”

“You can tell the difference between my crying?”

Harry rolled his eyes, as if the question was preposterous. “Obviously. This isn’t happy crying. This is...this reminds me a lot of sixth year. When you found out about Ron and Lavender. Oh. this is heartbreak crying, isn’t it?”

“No,” Hermione croaked. “I’m fine.”

Harry waved his wand, and warmth covered them. “This way no one’s going to put this charming picture of you with snot dripping down your face in tomorrow’s Prophet.”

“Rita would love that,” Hermione said, laughing weakly. 

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked. “I’ve never been much for curses, but just say the word and I’ll give whoever did this to you permanent sunburn.”

Hermione laughed again, wiping her eyes. “I don’t think you’d understand, Harry.”

“Try me.”

She looked at him. “You can’t tell anyone. Especially Ron.”

“I promise.”

“Not even Ginny. I’m serious.”

Harry’s mouth dropped. “She’s my wife! We tell each other everything.”

“You two are so disgustingly married,” Hermione said, and the sweetness of that kind of sharing secrets made her chest ache. “You can’t tell her, Harry. I can’t risk any of the Weasleys finding out.”

Harry sighed. “This must be really big news then.”

“I slept with Draco,” Hermione said. When Harry didn’t immediately respond, she added: “Malfoy.”

“Yes, Mione, I’m quite aware of who you are referring to. Not many parents give their unfortunate sons that kind of name.”

“Say something,” Hermione said. 

“I’m not sure what to say.”

“Anything. Please. End this silence. Tell me you hate me. Tell me I’m awful.”

“I don’t hate you, and you’re not awful,” Harry said. “I guess...I’m not that surprised to be honest.”

Hermione blinked. “I’m sorry. What? I literally tell you I slept with our childhood nemesis and you’re like ‘oh, you know, that’s totally fine’.”

“I don’t think I said it was fine.”

“I knew it. I knew you’d be upset. And of course, you have every right to be. He was horrible to all of us for years.”

Harry’s lips twitched. “The only reason this wouldn’t be okay to me is if he hurt you, and since you are sitting here crying, I’m inclined to think that’s the case.”

“You aren’t mad at me?”

“Why would I be? It’s not my place to say who you...date.”

“It wasn’t dating. It was more casual than that.”

Harry winced. “Mione, I’m not mad, but seeing I do consider you a sister, I don’t particularly want a tell all of your casual sex arrangement with him.”

Hermione snorted and buried her face in her hands. “I think I messed up, Harry.”

“I’m not convinced that’s possible for you, but tell me what happened.”

And she did. By the time it was all on the table, her tears had dried to her cheeks and her breathing had evened out.

“I get your hesitation,” Harry said. “Some people will be horrible no matter what you do. Listen, I was the bloody chosen one and people were still not always my biggest fan. There will always be people who don’t approve of you or your decisions. But you can’t live your life according to what other people want you to do. At the end of the day, you have to determine if he’s worth that risk.”

“And if he is?”

“Then you have to tell him.”

“I’m not ready,” Hermione said. 

“It doesn’t have to be tonight,” Harry said. “In fact, I’d encourage you not to do this tonight. Your breath reeks of firewhiskey. Give it time. Let it sit. Wait until the hurt eases a bit and you can say what you really want to say. But don’t wait too long, Hermione. The good ones don’t wait forever.”

* * *

  
  


She waited too long. 

The announcement was in the paper. His reserved smile, Astoria’s proffered hand with an emerald marquise ring. 

She considered calling in sick to work, but she decided it be better to go. The ministry was abuzz with the news, gossiping about how beautiful the babies would be. 

Ginny was already on leave from the Harpies’ season when she showed up in Hermione’s office, cradling her stomach and struggling to take a seat. 

“Little James keeps kicking today,” Ginny said.

“Perhaps he should play football,” Hermione said.

“Football?”

Hermione smiled and shook her head. Draco wouldn’t know what that was either. Her stomach tightened at the thought of him.

“It’s a muggle sport,” Hermione said.

“Oh, right, yes, I think Harry’s told me about that, but you know, the pregnancy brain is a struggle.”

“Did you need something, Ginny?” Hermione asked. “I’m a bit swamped today.”

“Harry said you’ve been working a lot.”

“I’m up for a promotion. I need to make sure I get it.”

“You always did like to focus on things you could control when things you couldn’t didn’t go as you wanted.”

“I’m going to kill Harry,” Hermione said. “He will have escaped Voldemort a billion times, but I will curse him into oblivion.”

“He had to tell me,” Ginny said. “He’s a very bad liar. You know that. Besides, you’ve been avoiding everyone. You didn’t even come to the baby shower for Ron and Lavender. I think they were a bit hurt, actually.”

“I didn’t mean to upset them,” Hermione said. “I just...I don’t feel like myself lately.”

“Yes, falling for Draco Malfoy does seem a bit unlike the Hermione I’ve always known.”

Hermione rested her quill on the desk. “If you’d told me years ago, I would have never believed it.”

“I’m not going to say anything rude,” Ginny said. “I’m sure you’re expecting that.”

“Got that all out of the way talking to Harry, I’m guessing.”

Ginny’s lips twisted up. “As a matter of fact, yes, I did. Listen, you know I have no love lost for Malfoy, but I’ve always trusted your judgment. If you saw something in him, then I will not sit here and tell you what I think. Instead, I’ll ask you, what did you see?”

“Did Harry tell you all of it?”

“Bits and pieces. He said I’d have to get the details from you. It was a bit of torture on my end that got any information out of him at all.”

“Please do not give me the details about what you and Harry do in bed. I am begging you. I don’t want to know.”

Ginny only giggled. “What was it about Malfoy?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione said, but that wasn’t entirely true. “It took me by surprise. Like a rainstorm you don’t see coming. We met up a while ago and had a good talk. He was...different. He apologized for everything. And I basically told him that if he wanted people to think he was a better person than he had been to prove it. I feel...he’s done quite a bit to prove it.”

“Hold on,” Ginny said, furrowing her brows. “What’s the timeline on this with the cure he created?”

“It might have been...done as a response to what I said to him.”

Ginny’s mouth dropped. “This man...cured one of your friend’s parents of a long-term curse...and you aren’t currently off sucking his---”

“I will remind you we are at my office right now, Ginny.”

“Fine, fine. You never let me have any fun. What went wrong? I still do a good Bat Bogey, if it comes down to it.”

“I told him we wouldn’t work.”

“Excuse me, this man literally made a magical discovery because you inspired him. For a bright witch, Hermione, this is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done. Is that too mean? I’m going to blame it on the pregnancy hormones.”

“You can’t blame everything on the pregnancy hormones, Ginny.”

“Try to stop me,” Ginny said. “Now, let’s go to lunch so I can berate you more for your bad decisions.”

* * *

And she did. For weeks and then months on end. Hermione began to threaten Ginny she’d block her from her flat’s floo, but then Ginny went into labor and was completely preoccupied by the newest Potter. 

The invitation came late. Clearly a back-up guest kind of invitation when someone on the A-list was unable to go. 

She knew going would break her irreparably. 

But maybe it would be good closure to see him with her, so she sent it back almost immediately with an acceptance. The owl was still in view when she regretted it.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


She sat in the back pew with the program pressed between her sweaty fingertips and the inside of her cheek between her teeth. Neville stood at front wearing a dapper set of robes. It was almost funny to Hermione that she was at Draco’s wedding of all weddings to be at, but even funnier was that Neville had been asked to be a groomsman. Apparently the drinking with Neville that Draco had mentioned in passing had bloomed into a genuine friendship, although it wasn’t hard to imagine that Neville would want to be friends with the man who gave him his parents back. 

Draco was drawn, his face pale and taut, as if he hadn’t been sleeping, but perhaps it was a trick of the light or her own hopes making her see him that way. Astoria was beautiful, her dark hair pulled back in a pearl-crusted chignon, having forsaken robes for a velvet emerald dress that draped across the floor. She walked like a siren, but her face was angelic with joy. Hermione couldn’t hate Astoria at that moment. She wanted to. She truly did. But she couldn’t hate Astoria for realizing the greatness in Draco that Hermione had seen herself. Hermione had her chance, and now Astoria was making good on her own. 

Wizarding weddings didn’t ask if people wanted a chance to stop the vows. Hermione was grateful for that. She wasn’t the type to stand and stop a wedding between two people who had chosen to bind themselves together for eternity, but she also wasn’t the type who would fall for Draco, and here she was. She was beginning to think Draco had a way of making her someone entirely different than who she always thought she was, of who she had desperately tried to be. The way he made her heart flutter in a way that felt scientifically impossible was not something she enjoyed as a practical, logical witch. She liked things that made sense, boxes that could be checked, ribbons that could be tied, and spells that could be cast without complication. Draco was none of those things, and that was terrifying. 

She watched him slip the ring onto Astoria’s finger, and she wanted to hate him, too. She wanted to hate them both, but she couldn’t hate Draco either. He couldn’t wait for her forever. Harry had even warned her of this. She’d rejected him, and Astoria had embraced him. Astoria beamed up at Draco, her crimson-lipsticked grin wide and real and unafraid. Something curled in Hermione’s stomach, and it took a moment to decipher. It wasn't hate or anger or bitterness. It was envy that Astoria could stand here so simply and proudly take Draco as her husband as if she had no hesitations or second thoughts. He was it for Astoria...and he could have been it for Hermione instead.

The crowd erupted in cheers, standing with thundering applause. Hermione bowed her head and clapped, grateful the noise of the celebrating masked her true feelings.

* * *

Hermione threw herself into work. She nailed the interview for the promotion and spent the night celebrating at Harry and Ginny’s with Ron and Lavender, and Neville even took the night off from Hogwarts and showed up. The night was cut short when the Weasleys’ sitter flaked and baby James started getting colicky. Hermione and Neville apparated into Muggle London and walked the streets.

“He didn’t think you’d come,” Neville said when they sat down inside a coffeehouse. Neville ordered a scone, but Hermione wasn’t hungry. She hadn’t been hungry for a while. “To the wedding, I mean.”

“Draco?” she asked. It was stupid to ask, and they both knew it, but she wanted the dignity of pretending. “Well, I was invited. Anyway, how have you been? How’s Luna?”

“I reckon she’s good,” Neville said. “We’re not together anymore, though, so can’t be certain.”

“What? When did this happen?”

“About four months ago.”

“Four months ago? Blimey, Neville, why didn’t you tell me?”

Neville shrugged. “You haven’t really been around, Hermione. You’ve been busy with work and...I don’t know.”

“What?” 

Neville shook his head. “I’m not supposed to say anything.”

“Neville.”

Neville sighed. “People are worried about you. You look thin and unhappy, and I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t look like you’re sleeping. You survived a goddamn war, Hermione. You don’t get to give up now because you’re heartbroken.”

“My God, does everyone know about Draco and me?”

“Listen, Draco and I are mates now. Of course I know. I will say Ginny did let that bit spill, too.”

“How did we all survive the war when none of you know how to keep your mouths shut?”

“I don’t think Ron knows, though,” Neville said. “I’d rather not be there if he was to find out, and I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way.”

“You have a real reason to hate Draco,” Hermione said. “I mean, look at your parents. It was because of people in his family that you didn’t have them most of your life.”

Neville nodded. “I do look at my parents, and for the first time, they look back, and they actually see me and know I’m their son, and that’s because of Draco. You made him want to be better. You made him believe he could. That’s no small feat.”

“It wasn’t about me,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “It was never about me. He could always do it.”

“Yes, he could always do it, but he didn’t know that. His family treated him terribly growing up. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that the despicable manners Lucius Malfoy showed in public was him being on good behavior.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not my history or story to share, Hermione. But suffice it to say, there’s a lot about Draco that you don’t know, but I’m sure you can guess. You know the good that exists in Draco. It’s always been there. You just helped it flourish. You told him it was possible when everyone else had told him it wasn’t.”

“I hope he’s happy,” Hermione said. “Because I’m not, and one of us should be.”

“It’ll be okay, Hermione. Things always turn out alright even if it doesn’t seem that way right now. You’ll make it through this. You always make it through.”

* * *

Hermione began to suspect she would not make it through. The days passed slowly, the nights alone slower. She brought home men and then blurred her face from their minds to keep the rendezvouses out of the paper. She stood under the shower, water pouring down on her until it went cold and she’d done nothing. She drank more than she would admit. Some nights, she didn’t leave the office at all. 

Harry came into her office around two in the morning while Hermione was on her third dose of pepper up potion, her fingers ink-stained and her eyes dry with exhaustion.

“You need to go home,” Harry said. “This isn’t good for you. You’re going to burn yourself out, and that’s bad for you, and it's bad for the entirety of the wizarding world who will miss out on your genius if you die of exhaustion. Let’s go, Hermione.”

Harry fed Crookshanks when they got back to her flat and made Hermione a cup of tea.

“What were you doing at the ministry so late?” Hermione asked.

“Are you truly asking me that?” Harry asked before sighing. “Late night mission. A very long and classified story.”

She took the tea and let it sit on the table. 

“I’m worried about you,” Harry said. “We all are.”

And she considered shrugging him off or forcing a smile to make him feel better, but she didn’t. She closed her eyes briefly, rubbing at them.

“I’m worried about me, too,” Hermione said. “This isn’t like me. I don’t like being this way.”

“Maybe you should talk to someone.”

“I’m talking to you.”

“You know what I’m referring to.”

Hermione sighed. “I do. Therapy is fine. I just don’t want to do it right now. Don’t get me wrong. I went after the war and everything, and it was good. I’m not against it. I guess…”

“Hmm?”

“It’s going to sound absolutely insane.”

“A great way to start this. Continue.”

Hermione started. “Therapy would help me move on. I know that.”

“Okay…?”

“Maybe I don’t want to move on,” Hermione said. “Because if I move on, it’s really over, and then it’s like it meant more to me than him or maybe it’ll fade completely and I’ll forget it mattered this much at all, and maybe I’ll never find anyone who made me feel the way he did, so maybe feeling that hurt, this absolutely bloody devastation that feels like having my heart stampeded on over and over...maybe that’s better than not remembering how it feels to be with him.”

“It’s impressive that you said that all in one breath.”

“Thank you,” Hermione said. “I’m glad that’s what you took from that.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mione. I just want you to be alright. You’re my best friend.”

“Better than Ron?”

“I’m not answering that,” Harry said, and he was laughing. 

Hermione rubbed her temples when Harry stopped laughing. “I think I’m in love with him.”

Harry regarded her sadly. “I know that, Mione. I just wish you had before he’d gotten married. You can’t do anything now.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“There will be someone else, Hermione. Maybe not today or tomorrow. Maybe not even for a while. And maybe that’s okay, because you probably need some time to heal that hurt you’re feeling. But eventually, you’ll be ready to let someone in again, and that person will be extremely lucky to end up with a woman as amazing as you, and you will fall so hard for them even though they haven’t ever been a ferret in their entire life. Just give it time, Mione. You’ll be okay.”

“I am very concerned with how wise you’ve become,” Hermione said.

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment. Now drink your tea. I need to get home soon. James will be up for his next feeding soon, and I know Ginny must be exhausted.”

She drank the tea, and in the morning, when she woke, the hurt had not fully evaporated by any means, but there was a budding seed of hope that she could get past this. It might not be as fast as she wanted, and she wouldn’t be rushing down the aisle any time soon, but she would be okay. 

* * *

She started going for walks in the park and cooking again. She got out of the office on time and went round to friends for celebrations. She visited Hogsmeade and caught up with McGonagall, who insisted on being called Minerva now, which Hermione had tried very hard and could not do, and she walked the grounds with Hagrid. In the distance, the rebuilt castle stood tall, and it made her smile. If Hogwarts could be rebuilt after devastation, so could she. She even went to a quidditch game with Ginny, who was not back to playing yet but still loved to watch, and tried to catch nargles with Luna. 

“Hermione,” Luna had said in that wistful voice of hers. “You never would have done this years ago.”

And Hermione laughed because it was true. “I suppose I’ve learned the value of expanding my horizons and never refusing to try new things.”

“You must be in love,” Luna said. “The nargles always know.”

“I was,” Hermione said. “And now I’m trying to love myself more than I loved him.”

“You will,” Luna said. “No pain is lasting. Oh, over here, there’s a pack of them!”

Hermione grabbed her net and followed after the blonde girl. It was still a little silly to her, but she wanted to be better than she was, to never deny things could be real or reject them because they might be complicated. She wanted to be brave and do Godric and herself right. She wanted to stand tall and be someone worth her own pride. She was capable of greatness and unyielding strength, even if she had let herself forget that momentarily. She would find someone else, and she’d probably be heartbroken again. But she didn’t want to fall apart like she had without Draco. She had to be able to survive on her own. 

* * *

Time passed, and Harry and Ginny announced they were pregnant with another boy. Luna married Rolf Scamander, and the two were always hosting wild dinner parties with the strangest food that Hermione tried very hard not to spit into their napkins as Rolf would recant his grandfather’s stories about the most incredible creatures. Neville started dating Hannah Abbott, and the two eloped after finding out Hannah was pregnant. 

Hermione moved up at work, but still remembered to take time for herself. She wasn’t as happy as she thought she could be, and the dates she went on were frequently disappointing. Cormac McLaggen had stopped her in Diagon Alley a few weeks ago and been sending her flowers to her office ever since, and Cormac’s father, who worked at the ministry, kept trying to make appointments with Hermione, although Hermione’s assistant was under strict instructions to say that Hermione’s schedule was fully booked. 

It was a Tuesday in blustering October when Astoria Malfoy walked in, her dress well-fitted and not a hair out of place. 

“Miss Granger, do you have a moment?” 

Hermione nodded at her pleasantly. “I was at your wedding, Astoria. It’s fine for you to call me Hermione.”

Astoria walked in, sitting down slowly. “I will level with you, Miss Granger. I consider myself a decent person. Perhaps if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting in your office. Perhaps instead I’d be sending you a Howler with a curse attached to it. Who’s to say, really?”

“Have I offended you somehow?” Hermione asked. “I told my assistant to send a nice anniversary gift. Did you not get it?”

“You’re very nice,” Astoria said. “I wish you weren’t. It would make things easier if you weren’t. You see, Miss Granger, my husband fell in love with you a very long time ago, and it has become clear to me lately he never quite fell out.”

The breath left Hermione’s lungs. “Oh. Um. I’m sorry, Astoria. That’s...nothing’s going on between Draco and me. I haven’t spoken to him for some time now. This must be a misunderstanding.”

“No misunderstanding except for the one where I accepted his proposal while thinking it was likely he was still stuck on someone else. If I’d known it was you at the time, I probably wouldn’t have accepted.”

“I’m sorry, but he’s been married to you for two years now, Astoria. I’m sure any feelings for me, if he had any, are gone now.”

“Do you know what you sent us for our anniversary, or did your assistant take care of that detail?”

Hermione shook her head. “I told her what to purchase. I find having assistants pick gifts for people they don’t know awkward and impersonal and a bit lazy.”

“You sent us some contraption that makes perfect eggs every time,” Astoria said. “Draco was delighted. I said, ‘Draco, what the bloody hell is this?’ And he told me it was for cooking eggs. I said to him, ‘Draco, why the bloody hell would we ever be cooking? That’s what house elves are for.’ And it started this huge row, as it always does when we talk about the house elves. Sometimes, it’s incredible to believe he was raised in a pureblood household. My God, he had house elves all of his life until a few years ago, and now he acts as if he’s better than me for not wanting them.”

Hermione adjusted her hair. “It’s probably strange to him to have them again after the ministry took them away when he lost the estate.”

Astoria opened her mouth but then closed it briefly. Opening it again, she said, “What did you say?”

Hermione repeated herself slowly, confused.

“The ministry didn’t take his house elves away from him,” Astoria said quietly. “There were rumors a few years ago that the ministry wanted to do that, but the ministry doesn’t have that power. House elves are bound to people until they are freed by that person or family. It's a very old kind of magic, the type that often isn't even written about in books to keep certain knowledge in the hands of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families. The ministry can’t break that kind of magic even if they remove the physical estate. They can’t sever that tie.”

“I don’t understand.”

Astoria narrowed her eyes. “No, it really seems you don’t. You really don’t know, do you? He didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Hermione asked, and blood rushed in her ears.

“You published some paper. I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard enough about it every time we have this bloody house elf row. About how house elves’ loyalty is slavery or whatever. I don’t care. That’s not even really what this is about. If it wasn’t about this, it’d be about something else. My point is, he read that paper after you published it years ago and he immediately contacted Hogwarts and asked them to take in his house elves and he freed them. He freed them because he read some bloody paper you wrote about how it was morally abhorrent or whatever, and he decided that something he’d known his entire life had to be unforgivable because you said it was.”

Something in Hermione’s brain short circuited, and she had no words to say. No thoughts would form in her head. She didn’t know if she would ever form a cohesive thought again.

“Uhh,” was all she managed.

“You really didn’t know,” Astoria said. “Perhaps you two deserve each other, because you’re both bloody idiots. I don’t mean that rudely, but it’s the truth. I hated you for some time now, Miss Granger, but I’ve come to realize it’s not your fault that you occupy so much space in my husband’s heart that he has never been able to give that to me. It’s his fault for promising himself to me when he knew deep down he wasn’t over you. I have contemplated this for quite some time, and it would be easy to be angry. I’ll even admit for a while, I was. That hurts less than knowing the man you’ve loved since you were a child could never really love you that way. But then I let that hurt in, and now I’m really at the point where I’ve realized none of us deserve this. Draco, as much of a little spineless mandrake he is, doesn’t deserve this, and I certainly don’t deserve this.”

“Mandrakes actually heal people. So it wouldn’t really be an insult to be called that.”

“Well, they’re very shriveled and ugly, so I disagree, but really not the point here.”

They sat in silence. 

“What I came to say, Miss Granger, is I am filing for divorce from Draco, and if you two do not eventually get together, I will come down here and hex you myself.”

“I don’t understand how you’re not angry about this.”

“Draco has always been faithful to me,” Astoria said. “He was always a good husband even though I realize now he hasn’t been able to love me the way I want or need my husband to. What’s the point of hanging onto something that isn’t working on for either one of us? Besides, all of my friends are already on their second and third marriages, so I need to catch up.” Astoria stood and brushed down her robes. “And Miss Granger, whoever I marry next, I expect a much better anniversary gift than something that cooks eggs. I would prefer sapphires, but on a ministry salary, I suppose I can settle for something less extravagant.”

“You didn’t have to come here and tell me all of this,” Hermione said.

“No, but I don’t want Draco to be miserable. I do believe he deserves to be happy even if it’s not with me, and if he believes you are the key to that, why shouldn’t I help give that a little shove?

* * *

The divorce was finalized and announced within a week. 

She hadn’t expected him to reach out soon after or ever, truly, as she’d been the one to turn him away. She wanted to give him time. Even if Astoria was convinced Draco had never loved her, even if it was true, breakups still sucked. 

She planned to reach out to him down the line when that sting had hopefully lessened. 

She hadn’t planned to see him before then. 

She was with her friends, the lot of them, in Hogsmeade, celebrating Neville’s raise, when Draco walked into the Three Broomsticks and sat down at the bar by himself. It was strange to see him here, a reminder of the history they shared years ago that had seemed to fade away. She thought of the ugly words he had called her for years, and it didn’t hurt the way it had when she was younger. 

“Oy,” Ron said loudly. “Is that Malfoy?”

“I suppose it is,” Luna said. “He looks very handsome.”

“I’m right here, love,” Rolf said, pressing a kiss to his wife’s cheek. 

“What’s he doing here?” Ron asked. 

“He had an interview with McGonagall,” Neville said. “Pomfrey wants to retire, but she doesn’t want to do so until she trusts the person taking over the job. I recommended him actually, so please don’t start shouting and embarrass me.”

The tension was thick in the air until Ron took a sip of his drink. “You know, I reckon the bloke’s done alright for himself.”

Everyone at the table stared at Ron.

“Are you alright, mate?” Harry asked.

“I don’t think he’s possessed,” Ginny muttered. “Trust me, I know the signs.”

“That’s a very...calm response,” Neville said, to which Hannah laughed into her butterbeer.

“I have tamed the beast,” Lavender beamed. “Just because Ron had a bit of a temper when he was younger doesn’t mean he’s that bad now. Unless someone’s rude to me or the kids.”

Hermione smiled. She was glad Ron had found someone who had helped him be the best version of himself. 

“Alright, alright,” Ron said, a bit sheepishly. “Settle down. Look, I’ll never be mates with him. We’re not going to sit around and giggle over which girls we think are cute.”

“Truly I hope not,” Harry said, his eyes wandering briefly to Hermione.

Ginny burst out laughing. “You don’t have to like him, but being civil is a step into maturity I hadn’t realized you’d taken yet.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Ron said. “I think he was an absolute shite when we were at school, but I’d be an idiot to pretend he didn’t get us out of being murdered by Bellatrix and her band of lunatics, and, even after the trial, I was happy to go on hating him. It was a fun and easy job for me. But look what he did for the Longbottoms. I don’t know. We were all kids then, you know? I think he was just a terrified little kid who had been told his whole life that the wrong thing was the right one.”

Hermione blinked. None of them cared. None of them cared at all about who Draco had been. Even Ron seemed willing to accept that Draco was capable of being someone different. Maybe he’d feel differently if he knew the extent of Hermione’s relationship with Draco, but still, she’d never expected such...a mature response from Ron. But he wasn’t the boy anymore who held grudges and had a wildfire temper he couldn’t control. He’d grown into a man with a family he loved fiercely.

“What got into you?” Hermione said, cracking a smile.

“Honestly, Mione, having kids completely changes who you are as a person,” Ron said. “I had to grow up when we had them. You can’t just be getting angry over nothing when there are those little people you have to keep alive. I think about if my kid was in the situation or if I was in that situation, I’d like to think I’d do what was right, but would I, if I was afraid of being murdered and afraid of my family being murdered? I don’t know. All I’m saying is I don’t think Malfoy is that person anymore. Oh, did I tell you guys about what Peri did last week?”

The conversation turned to how little Periwinkle had levitated the entire dining set when she’d been told she had to eat her peas before she left the table, leading to the table erupting into laughter. The noise caused Draco to look over, and Hermione’s eyes locked on his. He nodded at her politely, a casual acknowledgement you’d give an acquaintance, and the flippantness of it stung.

Her friends didn’t care. Maybe other people would. But if she could survive Rita Skeeter spinning vicious lies about her when she was at school, she could survive whatever fallout there might be from following her heart. He made her want to be brave even if it was scary, even if it might all combust and fall apart. There was always the risk of it ending, but it had hurt just as bad, maybe even worse, when they hadn’t tried at all. She didn’t want to spend another day, even another minute, not telling him that he was it. He was it for her, and it didn’t matter that they’d never officially dated or that no one had known at the time. She knew. He wanted to be a better person because of her, and she knew now she wanted to be one too because of him.

It was now or never. She stood up from the table and walked away without another word, standing next to Draco at the bar. 

“Mind if I sit here?” she asked.

“People will see,” Draco said without looking at her. “They’ll talk.”

“No one who matters to me will,” Hermione said.

This shocked him enough for him to look over, and she heated under his gaze. She had that distinct pinprick feeling in her neck she got when she knew she was being watched. She knew her friends had to be watching, and Ron was asking what was going on and asking why he was always the last to know these things. Perhaps the entirety of the bar was watching. She didn’t care anymore. 

“Astoria told me she went to see you,” Draco said.

“It’s nice that you’re still on speaking terms with her,” Hermione said.

“I don’t have any issues with her. I just feel guilty I couldn’t be a good husband to her. She deserved better.”

They sat in silence for a moment, and her heart tightened. “Astoria told me you freed your house elves years ago after you read a paper I wrote. Why did you tell me the ministry took them away?”

Draco groaned. “I wish she hadn’t told you that. It’s mortifying.”

“What’s mortifying?”

He met her eyes with such serious sincerity that it made her bite her lip. “Don’t you see, Hermione? I have been halfway in love with you for years and always trying to convince myself not to fall the rest of the way in. I wanted to be better. For you. Even before we had that coffee. I wanted to be someone you could respect.”

“I respect you, Draco. You’ve shown me over and over that you are someone incredible.”

“Not enough to make you want to be seen with me,” Draco said, smiling sadly. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. We had that time and it’s gone now.”

She leaned in, and her heart pounded in every muscle in her body. “Draco Malfoy, unless you ask me not to, I am going to kiss you right now.”

Draco’s mouth dropped open in a very undignified fashion. “Now, people will certainly talk about it if we have a proper snog in the middle of the Three Broomsticks.”

“If people are so damn boring that they must be preoccupied with our lives instead of their own, then let them talk.”

She leaned in and pressed her lips to his gently, and it felt like coming home, like the time they’d spent apart was gone with his kiss. He wound his hands up to her hair and pulled her closer, and people were cheering. Ginny, in particular, was shrieking, but it faded away the longer they kissed. She knew in that moment, anything could happen and she would be able to come home and feel it wash off her shoulders if she was coming home to him. 

“I’d like to take you on a date,” Hermione said when they broke apart. “But I can’t guarantee it’ll be somewhere nice. After all, as your ex-wife reminded me, I am on a ministry salary.”

“I think we can work something out.”

Hermione spared a glance over her shoulder. “Did you want to meet my friends? I mean, not meet...you’ve met them before, but…”

“You’re nervous.”

“And you’re astute.”

“And good looking,” Draco said. "Don't forget that."

Hermione rolled her eyes and laughed.

“What are the chances I’m going to get cursed into oblivion if I go over there?” Draco asked.

“I actually think things look pretty good for you on that end.”

Hermione led him to her friends, and he nodded, the nervous energy radiating off of him. 

“Alright,” Ron said. “Still a bit confused here after getting Ginny’s summary of all of this, but all I’m going to say is don’t hurt her, Malfoy. I have a toddler who can levitate dining tables, so you want to stay on my good side.”

The Prophet came out the next morning, and she saw herself and Draco kissing in the moving photograph. Rita Skeeter had written something scathing, the first line being: The mousy-haired war heroine...and then Hermione tossed the paper aside and tucked into her breakfast. She knew now that it wasn’t worth it to read the hate other people had to write about her. She would never please everyone. Whatever Rita Skeeter wrote, it wouldn’t change how Draco made her feel, how she had woken up this morning feeling she could move mountains with the force of her happiness. 

She let Draco pull her back down to the bed, lingering kisses along the softness of her body. 

“I have to go,” Hermione said. “I’ll be late to work.”

Draco nipped at her shoulder. “What’s a few minutes?”

“I’m never late.”

“That doesn’t surprise me at all, but what could they possibly say? And what was it you said last night, Miss Bravado? Let them talk?”

“They’ll say I’m a tardy harlot!”

Draco chuckled. “This is not the forties. I don’t think anyone says harlot anymore. Maybe all they’ll say about you is that you’re a witch who is thoroughly and hopelessly loved.”

“Loved?” Hermione asked, staring up at him.

“How many NEWTS did you get again?” 

She swatted him. “You’ve never said it before.”

“You haven’t either.”

“That’s a bit difficult when you are married to another woman, you see.”

He tilted her chin up and their eyes locked. “I love you, Hermione. I don’t know when it started exactly to be honest, but I’ve loved you for so long now that it feels like breathing, like if I managed to stop doing it, I would stop existing entirely.”

“I love you, too,” she said and climbed on top of him. “And I suppose with a declaration of that nature, I can be a few minutes late.”

She was two hours late.

  
  
  



End file.
